Based on the article “no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of a population has ever failed” has the caveat of “we only look at 3 of them, and those 3 worked”.
So their overall sample size is small, and the 3.5% sample size is just 3. Further, those 3 had no idea someone in the vague future would retroactively measure their participation to declare it a rock solid threshold.
I think the broader takeaway is that number of people seems to matter more than degree of violence, and violence seems to alienate people that might have otherwise participated.
Also, the “no violence” thing has a LOT to do with what the mobilizing group is trying to accomplish.
Changing policies and ousting leadership that isn’t performing? Hell yeah, peaceful marches and protests all the way.
Want to remove a hostile and oppressive militarized regime? That shit is NEVER pretty, and turns even the best of people into monsters by necessity.
feels awfully close second one… especially now that i found out they’re deputizing bounty hunters to impersonate federal officers, with masks on… and paying them >$1,000 per brown person they kidnap…
i mean i knew it something extra odd was happening but a lot of these guys are contractors… and ofc white supremacists…
George Floyd protests had more than that (closer to 8%) and they didn’t really change anything.
Most of that I put on our ineffectual Democratic leadership who are supposed to represent the people. We had a mandate of millions and I don’t remember a single, actual dramatic effort to reshape policy by our elected leaders.
At that time, many people still believed Democrats were actually the opposition group to conservative fascism, and not the checked-out wine-mom getting alimony checks every month from the right.
This refers to Chenoweth’s research, and I’m somewhat familiar with their work. I think it’s good to clarify what non-violent means to them, as it’s non-obvious. For example, are economic boycotts violence? They harm businesses and keep food of the tables of workers. I don’t think that’s violence, but some people do, and what really matters here is what Chenoweth thinks violence is, and what they mean when they say “nonviolent tactics are more effective”.
At the end of “civil resistance: what everyone needs to know”, Chenoweth lists a number of campaigns which they’ve marked as violent/nonviolent and successful/unsuccessful. Let’s look at them and the tactics employed tonfigure out what exactly Chenoweth is advocating for. Please do not read this as a condemnation of their work, or of the protests that follow. This is just an investigation into what “nonviolence” means to Chenoweth.
Euromaidan: successful, nonviolent. In these protests, protestors threw molotov cocktails and bricks and at the police. I remember seeing a video of an apc getting absolutely melted by 10 or so molotovs cocktails.
The anti-Pinochet campaign: successful, nonviolent. This involved at least one attempt on Pinochet’s life.
Gwangju uprising in South Korea: unsuccessful, nonviolent. Car plowed into police officers, 4 dead.
Anti-Duvalier campaign in Haiti: successful, nonviolent. Destruction of government offices.
To summarize, here’s some means that are included in Chenoweth’s research:
- throwing bricks at the police
- throwing molotov cocktails at the police
- assassination attempts
- driving a car into police officers
- destroying government offices
The point here is not that these protests were wrong, they weren’t. The point is that they employed violent tactics in the face of state violence. Self-defense is not violence, and this article completely ignores this context, and heavily and knowingly implies that sitting in a circle and singing kumbaya is the way to beat oppression. It isn’t.
What about the arab spring?
They consider it non-violent.
Well… ok… then let’s do the “NONVIOLENT” protests and stop doing these sit ins.
I mean do they consider it a success?
Is there a list available?
At this point I’m curious what they consider violent. Straight up military uprising and civil war?
Idk, that French deal seemed to work out pretty well.
Because they were trying to topple the entire system, not voice disapproval or change policies.
There’s no peaceful way to do that without a level of coordinated effort that we will NEVER get from groups of humans. To say nothing of the fact that even after the revolution, you have to share space with the people and sympathizers of those ousted, so sending a message of severe, popular consequence for regression is almost a necessity for lasting change.
Data presented to you by BBC the same network that lied to you about WMS in Iraq, genocide of the Palestinians people, and most likely more.
Non-violent protests still need to come with a credible threat of becoming violent if the protesters’ safety is being attacked or if their human rights are compromised.
It’s a social contract basically: we will be peaceful as long as you allow us to remain peaceful.
Yes, basically the individual gives up their sovereign monopoly of violence to the state in exchange for protection and representation through the constitution. Break that contract and people have the moral right to oppose “legal” violence carried out through a dictatorship.
So how do you keep the police from making it violent?
Armed protestors
Considering the UK’s biggest export is independence days, it’s kind of hard to think that all of those were solved through non violent means.
sure, BBC. tell us how youd like us to express our dissatisfaction.
the fact msm is doing this so desperately rn 🤔
Let me know what all the peaceful protests on climate change did leading up to and since the Paris Agreement.
Civil disobedience, including violent action, absolutely has a place in changing the policy of the state.
Sure, a poor uneducated place.
Lmao I love that people still reply to you when your name is trollception.
Well done.
Ah, so you agree there IS a place though.
That statistic only works if the government cares what we think. Voters have trained politicians that they can do whatever they want with no repercussions. Therefore, they do not need to care what we think.
On the one hand, most of those incidents cited were in the face of a regime that also didn’t want to care. Just hard to ignore circumstances if 3.5% of your people are out on the streets and likely most of the people off the streets agree with them.
On the other hand, they base this on very few instances, so it’s hardly a statistical slam dunk, it’s vaguely supportive of some concepts, but anyone taking note of specific numbers is really overextending the research beyond what it can possibly say.
there has to be a big ass asterisk on his post. generally things like the civil rights movement got partially undone and then success can be nebulous since even in a movement there are subset of goals that might not have been achieved
The average person doesn’t like violent civil unrest, shocking.
Also, I bet you can mess with the numbers to mean about anything you want by changing what classifies as “violent”. A lot of people include property destruction in their definition of violence. But a lot of other people don’t and only consider that property damage.
Who wrote this article? Fairy tale bullshit??
BBC tier neoliberalism.
“Real victory is when you stop trying to resist” might as well be the Keir Starmer campaign slogan
look at this fed (and my answer): https://lemmy.world/post/31384291/17679569
Could it be they are scared of actual change and started a social media campaign? Coincidentally also the same message from Bernie the sheepdog. https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1932148252800905415
